Ok, so we usually don’t review chains, but The Melting Pot is such a different place to begin with, that I had to do it.
AA, a good friend of ours was in town for business, so Duwardo, MW and I all went to dinner with him. We wanted to try something new, and fondue came up and was agreed upon by all.
We walked in and realized that we were probably the most casual people there, as everyone else was dressed up with the girls wearing really revealing dresses or sparkly sort of things. Not to disparage anyone, but I kind of got the feeling that this is where the “younger” couples went when they dressed up and went out to a nice meal.
Anyhow, we ordered 2 “Entrees for 2″ One of the Signature Selection and another order of the Pacific Rim. We started out with a Traditional Swiss fondue, which was a bit heavy on the alcohol taste but still delicious. I had the California Salad, which was pretty delicious as well and offset the heaviness of the cheese fondue. The Coq au vin meat fondue was delicious and we all quite enjoyed that. We definitely didn’t have enough room for dessert, but maybe someday I’ll go there just to do the dessert.
We had great service and our waitress was really sweet and nice to us.
Overall, it’s an interesting place to go to and try at least once. It’s certainly not our “go to” nice restaurant but it was a lot of fun as a group. If you haven’t tried fondue, I recommend it at least once…it’s definitely an experience.
The Melting Pot, 14 Mercer St, Seattle, WA
Categories: American · fondue · recommended · restaurant
Duwardo and I were recently in Las Vegas and wanted to find a nice restaurant for dinner before we headed off to the Spamalot show at the Wynn. We decided on Daniel Boulud’s Brasserie for various reasons: 1) Daniel Boulud is a talented chef that we’ve heard quite a bit about, 2) we had mentioned that we’d like to find a French restaurant to try, and 3) it was conveniently located in the Wynn as well.
We were treated amazingly well there, but seriously, that’s to be expected when you’re going to a place like this. There was no air of snootiness or anything like that at all. We were quickly seated to our seat, where we had a nice view of the “Lake of Dreams” (which has a really weird show that happens every half hour…we ended up seeing a frog singing What a Wonderful World…a bit out of place with the restaurant, but also amusing).
We opted to go with the prix fixe meal. I had the chilled tomato soup, organic roasted chicken with a scallion and potato puree and a sweet corn ragout, and a warm peach clafoutis. To top it off, the very kind sommelier suggested a chenin blanc to go with the meal. (I have the name written down, and will post that later). The tomato soup was delicious, I was ready to ask for a second serving of it, I loved it so much. The chicken and the wine went superbly together, so a big hats off to the sommelier for his great suggestion. I had originally wanted to order a glass of the reisling, but he steered me towards this instead and I thank him for that. The meal was so delicious that I ate most of it, and was very full when dessert came. I only ate a bit of it, but the peach clafoutis was fabulous. It was similar to a peach cobbler. Duwardo had the pate de campagne forestiere, the original NY DB burger, and milk chocolate parfait. Duwardo had never had pate before, but I knew he’d love it so I pushed him to order it…he ended up eating the whole thing. The original NY DB burger was completely out of this world. It’s a sirloin burger stuffed with foie gras, spare ribs, and truffles. We had heard about Daniel Boulud’s extravagant burgers, but this was just amazing. The milk chocolate parfait was also absolutely delicious.
This was definitely a great restaurant and ranks up there as one of the top 3 meals. If you’re in Vegas and looking for a fabulous restaurant, I highly recommend Daniel Boulud’s Brasserie.
Daniel Boulud’s Brasserie at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort and Country Club, Las Vegas, NV
Categories: French · recommended · restaurant
